Posted 2 years ago on Jan. 13, 2013, 12:02 p.m. EST by toobighasfailed
(117)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

[Edited to add: The tone of the question may sound like I'm upset, but I'm just asking out curiosity.]

If there was ever an internet/millennial activist we could admire, it was Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on Friday in part because of pressures of facing years in prison for possibly breaching an academic paywall.

The last email a leader at Google+ received from him was a request to start hangouts for #Occupy.

And Lawrence Lessig has a powerhouse tribute to him, wherein he berates our (in)justice system, which labeled someone like Aaron a felon, even while the people in the financial system get away with real felonies.

Users of technology may not have deep appreciation or recognition of the technology enablers such as Aaron Swartz so his name may not go "Ding Dong." There are many users but few dig far beyond the interface. I had the very naive idea that foods, tools, gadgets, etc. all came miraculously from the shops, supermarkets, stores, etc. All I had to do was to give them pieces of intricately printed pieces of paper and coins. Of course, there were far more than that beyond the interface. The genius of Capitalism was to invent this peculiar scheme, farcical to space aliens, no doubt, but extremely exploitable by the financial criminals.

This case shows the tremendous overreach by the prosecutor(s) representing the government, which reveals itself to be very scared indeed. Freedom is inimical to domination and exploitation. Squelching dissent is top priority for the corrupts. Aaron Swartz was seen as a potentially powerful threat to the order that be, to be crushed so the hanky-panky can continue.

The fear might also be due to the tremendous technological illiteracy or lack of technological capabilities in our government's enforcers. The F.B.I. was known to physically remove server cabinets to subpoena information or disable dissemination of information. It seems to be an approach from the paleolithic information age. Even our military, supposedly grunts, knew what to take without causing massive informational collateral damage.

Absolutely correct in your statement except for two somewhat finer points -- not all of the bankers were culpable nor did the culprits hurt everyone equally. It is blatantly obvious which bankers were indeed culpable. Even paleolithic members of the Federal Bureau of Incompetence (alright, that may no longer be applicable so "Federal Bureau of Incontinence" is more apt now) know but dare not breach the veil of silence.

I concede. It is true that not all bankers are culpable, and that 'fuckings over' were not equally distributed.

The culpable bankers enjoy protection, recruited from the ranks of the very people they have robbed. Once that veil of silence is lifted, within the FBI, there will be change unstoppable, and those bankers will be held accountable for stealing from the very people they recruited to protect them.

Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney prosecuting Aaron Swartz's case, said, "Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars," she said. "It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away."
Document, data or dollars makes no difference

There goes someone in a position of authority who MISSES such an important difference in the information age -- all data stolen have been copied and what was done with them is of paramount importance. The U.S. government sucked up huge amount of information globally and also domestically WITHOUT WARRANT, which goes counter to our Constitution. How can Carmen Ortiz justify not prosecuting the U.S. government?

In the administration of justice, one must exercise good judgment and render sentences commensurate with the severity of the case. Using a sledgehammer in Aaron Swartz's case belies the prosecutor's incompetence at the best and governmental favoritism at the worst. Let all U.S. citizens be reminded that we Americans fought our Revolutionary War partly due to the arbitrariness of "justice."

Ortiz represents a desperate ideology, intent upon the attempt to limit the spread of information. Much information shared has a grave potential to have adverse effects upon those with that mindset.

It is no surprise that ideologies like that are incapable of perceiving such contradictions. The end will forever justify the means for them, as long as fear of exposure remains the dictatorial determinant.

The purported data allegedly stolen by Aaron Swartz were academic papers that more than 99.9% of the people on our planet have absolutely NO interest in even if they were available for free.

If censoring information is how the U.S. government seeks to protect its national security, it is going about it the wrong way. Even much of the so-called classified information can be easily pieced together by those knowledgeable in the craft. If they truly have ill intents, a little bit of money will NOT deter them and JSTOR or not will not make any real difference. The case shows how much the U.S. cowers in fear of information leaks.

Very true indeed. Carmen Ortiz would be hard pressed to be able to understand such an academic paper. This is the effect of the new "liberalization" of the U.S. minds achieved in our persons of authority. We deploy legions of tin-made security agents to defend our sand castle on the beach. Is there anyone still wondering why the U.S. will go broke paying for our home castle defense against the tide? Prior to 9/11/2001, data glut caused intelligence breakdown. Now, what we have achieved since then is -- far more data than before!

I imagine if it is possible to free the 'impaction' there will be a free flowing of resource. Trillions are spent on military. Billions are squandered by banking. This status quo is unsustainable and people will inevitably wake up.

because this site has huge latency of certain actions and reactions. some actions like climate change and some shit like gmo products seems to me were chosen to be more important rather than freedom issues. political corruption in many ways is too bad, but most likely you won't get the catch